"Terrorism has often been an effective tactic for the weaker side in a conflict. As an asymmetric form of conflict, it confers coercive power with many of the advantages of military force at a fraction of the cost..."

"The FBI uses this: "Terrorism is the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."..."

IMO, violence or the threat of violence is not the sole defining factor of terrorism. It's the use of unlawful threats by the 'weaker side', to coerce a government or society.

In government, the Tea Party is a small minority in the House. The TP Caucus has only 17 members. The TP aligned members of the House totalled 87. IMO, many of those House members are unwilling to risk a primary challenge which would be funded by the billionaire brothers pulling the strings on the Tea Party.

Even at 87, the Tea Party is a small minority in the House. (Total House members - 435) Look how leveraged this faction is. Seventeen teabaggers aligned with about 80 conservatives are a large enough group to force the capitulation of the Speaker to their agenda.

What has this agenda been? Passing a string of symbolic votes which the Senate has rejected. Attempts to reconcile any of that legislation with the Senate has been rejected by the House, who have decided that the US Senate is a subcomittee of the House. This summer, the circus got dangerous, threatening the full faith and credit of the US, resulting in the first ever downgrade of the US credit rating.

Lest you think I am twisting this, read the threat of Mitch McConell after the budget deal.

“I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting,” he said. “Most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this —it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done.”

This is not politics... it's terrorism. Even without an AK-47 or bombs, threatening to blow up the economy unless the majority will bow to a small minority who are only the puppets of billionaires is terrorism.

Get a grip, Doug.You apparently overlooked the words "force and violence" in the definition.

If your view was true, then ya might as well accuse all the minority groups and caucuses of terrorism. Matter of fact, not even just the minority groups, but the majority ones. So there goes your Democrat majority in the Senate. And your President too. His tactics are at best tyrannical, and by your definition, terrorist.

The far left is trying to brand the Tea Party as "Terrorists" in order to marginalize them in the eyes of non ideological Americans because they make up most of the voting public. It reminds me of when the left were trying to brand them as Racists. It is obvious that this is a designed form of propaganda as multiple Left wing politicians have made this assertion. The New York times even characterized the Tea Party as jihadists. I find it ironic that leftists only use the term Jihad when dealing with people they are politically opposed to and wouldn't dare to call it Jihad when the real Muslim terrorist strike. Also none of the hard left politicians were branded terrorists when they opposed the new debt deal.

The fact is that this country needs to stop spending money that it doesn't have and the Tea Party knows it. Last time the president passed a 787 billion dollar bill that was chalked full of earmark spending so politicians could get money and votes, and they have absolutely no idea where all the money went.

"We have to pass the bill so we can find out what's in it" -Nancy Pelosi

“We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act...”

"It’s right there on Page 4 of the official Standard & Poors “Research Update” –the actual report on what they did and why –published on August 5th.."

I have a hunch that I know who that "moderate hubber whom [you] respect" might be!

I just wrote an article, "Stop the Madness, Again", that destroys the argument that this credit rating downgrade is in any way shape or form the result of the Tea party. Some guy named David Seaman over at Business Insider tried to claim that Ron Paul and the Tea Party were committing treason by intentionally trying to decrease the credit rating.

Boy, I had fun with that one. Kick 'em while they're down... and spit on their faces, too.

The S&P rating really isn't all it's cracked up to be -- they downgraded us because we weren't willing to raise taxes despite it bringing in $2 trillion a year? Give me a break.

They're talking about France's credit rating being the next one on the chopping block.... because it can't print money out of thin air.

It is a direct result of the Democrats, despite have control of Congress and the Presidency, until the last election, not passing a budget, spending money like there's no tomorrow, and lining the pockets of their campaign donors with taxpayer money.I gotta laugh at you guys saying the Republicans are in the pocket of rich people when the rich have donated more to the Democrats in the last 2 elections than Republicans.

Um, it wouldn't have anything to do with the increasingly unpayable debt we are amassing by out of control spending?! I put the blame on both parties! But no worries, the Fed will buy whatever debt no one else will buy, with fake money, right? for a while at least

The United States Department of Defense defines terrorism as “the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.”

Let's analyze the first sentence of this statement:

The government defines terrorism as the use of "unlawful violence".

Pause and reflect on this statement:

When is violence ever lawful? -- when the government doles it out.

Who decides what lawful is? -- the government. And more and more these days that means "the president".

So, with this "Department of Defense Definition" (DoDD), we see that, once and for all, the government decides who a terrorist is without a doubt.

The government gets 100% autonomy of defining who a terrorist is.

Now, moving on to the Doug's argument:

"IMO, violence or the threat of violence is not the sole defining factor of terrorism. It's the use of unlawful threats by the 'weaker side', to coerce a government or society."

Well, too bad, Doug. Your opinion has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on what terrorism is. I'm not trying to be mean; after all, my opinion has no bearing whatsoever, either.

Only the Department of Defense gets to decide who a terrorist is. The DoD is part of the executive branch, so the president -- one single man -- gets to decide who is or is not a terrorist.

He insists that if a weaker side uses unlawful threats (no violence needed) to coerce a government or society, then we have a terrorist organization.

It becomes clear from the rest of Doug's argument that, by "threats" he doesn't necessarily mean "threats of violence", otherwise this would completely be in agreement with the DoDD. He seems to mean "using high-stakes politics to get one's way".

With the debt-ceiling debate (Throughout which, Doug is demanding that the Tea Party used 'terrorism' to get their way), the Tea Party never used any violence, threat of violence, or even any threat whatsoever. So, this doesn't match the DoDD, but it does Doug's.

Well, OK. That's fine. But this really isn't terrorism.

We really need to watch out we throw around the definition of a word that, when applied to someone, can allow government to throw someone in a jail cell and be tortured for the rest of their days without hope of a trial by jury

Going further, if Doug's definition of terrorism is true:

Then we have a serious problem. Remember those guys commonly referred to as "the Founding Fathers"? They managed to convince 13 colonies to go to war against their mother country. This would DEFINITELY be "using high-stakes politics".

Then, the people overthrowing their governments in the Middle East are terrorists. After all, their use of politic is very threatening and high-stake.

Mitch McConnell is the number one republican in the Senate. Did you read the recent quote?

"default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting,...What we did learn is this —it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming."

True, they did not hold a gun at the head of a person. What they did was a violation of the 14th amendment. They questioned the validity of the US public debt.

These tactics DIRECTLY caused a downgrade of the US credit rating, the consequences as yet unclear. I'm not saying that the antics of the republicans party caused the downgrade. Standard & Poor said it in writing.

“We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues...”

Yes, I read the quote. Some guy drew a metaphor to the debt-ceiling debate and a hostage. That doesn't go against any of the arguments I laid out.

*********Your 14th Amendment argument is too thin for a good argument. Here's why:

If Congress raises the debt CEILING, then no new debt can be CREATED. This means that the current debt is still valid -- so, the "validity" of the debt would never have been "questioned".

Thus, if the ceiling weren't raised, the amount of money borrowed would freeze immediately. The remaining revenue would then be used to pay back the debt - the interest on the T-Bills.

The ONLY way the 14th Amendment argument can be used properly is if there weren't enough money to repay the interest on CURRENTLY issued T-Bills, and the US was too hesitant to print the money out of thin air to pay off this interest.

Sorry, the 14th amendment argument isn't accurate.

**********Yes, the S&P said that (essentially) "failure to increase taxes AND LOWER SPENDING" led to the decrease in credit rating. Everyone really seems to be harping on that first part, but not so much on the second part!!!! Debts have two parts, y'know!

Even if the "terrorist tactics" of "holding the government hostage" DID directly lead to the credit downgrade, this still fails to meet the DoDD of terrorism. It only meets the "Doug Hughes" definition of terrorism.

And even that is a shaky argument.

****I must repeat my assertion that we stop throwing the terrorist around so willy-nilly.

Here's the quote that the liberals REALLY aren't focusing on (You know I don't play partisan politics, I'm merely pointing out that most liberals on the web have been ignoring this part):

"The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower thelong-term rating to 'AA' within the next two years if we see that lessreduction in spending than agreed to, higher interest rates, or newfiscal pressures during the period result in a higher general governmentdebt trajectory than we currently assume in our base case."

Oh, here's another doozy for the liberals to NOT report:

"We view the act's measures as a step toward fiscal consolidation."

They then proceed to ***COMPLETELY AGREE WITH RON PAUL'S PREVIOUS ASSESSMENT OF THE ISSUE***:

"However, this is within the framework of a legislative mechanism that leaves open the details of what is finally agreed to until the end of 2011, and Congress and the Administration could modify any agreement in the future."

The 14th amendment specifies the 'public debt' not the 'national debt'.... and it goes further including pensions... so the intent clearly suggests that all the obligations incurred by previous legislative acts... not just the national debt can not be questioned.

1) Debt held by government accounts, also known as intragovernmental holdings, that is, Treasury securities held in accounts that are administered by the federal government, such as the Social Security Trust Fund2) Debt held by the public, that is, securities held by investors outside the federal government, including that held by the Federal Reserve System and state and local governments. This is the net public debt.

Thus the public debt only includes money that has been borrowed so far: T-Bills (and other treasury securities which work just like T-Bills, but longer) and the bonds owed to the Fed (which were printed out of thin air, and thus unconstitutional to begin with).

This means that the "validity" of the "public debt" means ONLY the ability to repay T-Bill interest AND... nothing else.

*****Also, your argument about "pensions" is incorrect. Here's the full quote of the area you are talking about:

"...including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion..."

Because there are no "debts" which were "incurred" because of the "payment of pensions" for "suppressing insurrection or rebellion", then your argument falls flat.

***

PS - This is a fantastic debate we're having. I'm loving every minute, and I'm learning a lot. I'm going to probably end up writing an article about this tomorrow because I'm so excited about what I'm learning and I can't find these arguments consolidated on the web anywhere. And it needs to be written.

But I must insist that the 14 amendment argument doesn't hold any water.

The overview of the report clearly states:"The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower thelong-term rating to 'AA' within the next two years if we see that lessreduction in spending than agreed to, higher interest rates, or newfiscal pressures during the period result in a higher general governmentdebt trajectory than we currently assume in our base case."

All the quotes in my previous post were STRAIGHT out of the report.

And, yes, S&P pretty much completely agreed with Ron Paul's assessment of things: That the cuts in the deficit MIGHT NOT EVEN BE IMPLEMENTED, and that these cuts have not been spelled out at all..

The downgrade of the U.S. credit rating was inevitable. It was not the fault specifically of the Tea Party, although their recent behaviors did play a part in the final decision. Our credit downgrade was the result of years of fiscal irresponsibility and recent foolishness on behalf of our current representatives. The Republicans are as much to blame as the Democrats, who are as much to blame as the Tea Party, who are as much to blame as a disengaged citizenry. The Tea Party are NOT terrorist, or traitors. I would say it would be fairer to describe them as misguided patriots who place their ideas and philosophies above the realistic situation in which we find our nation. They are correct in their position that the U.S. needs to reign in on it's spending, and be much more fiscally responsible. However, there is a reasonable and responsible way of doing that which could ease the pressure on our economy and not sacrifice the poor, sick and elderly in the process. They are FAR from terrorists! I believe foolish would be a better description. Yet I would use the same adjective to describe our citizens, for we are the ones which allowed things to go this far.

Weather it's Fox news, MSNBC, or a representative making a statement on CNN, they all are sticking to their talking points. Everyone is so busy defending their position, that nobody bothers with actually trying to solve the problems. I personally believe it's all down hill from here. There was a time that I had hope, faith, call it what you will. That time is past. I believe I've become cynical. Which SUCKS!!!!!

I have been watching the Yahoo boards and people are furious at the Republicans, especially the Tea Party. They are getting the lion's share of the blame for the debt downgrade. Here's why:1. Obama wanted a grand plan....

I can't help but wonder if the United States could be considered a terrorist nation. With its actions in the past and the present, can the U.S. be considered terrorists?The treatment of Native Americans, slavery,...

The 14th AmendmentSection 4. "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or...

For me, it would entail the coalition of an elite and a government to terrorize a third group, the people. For instance, the collusion of Mandchurian candidates and the CIA to attack totally randomly the Boston Marathon...